There were two houses very close to my school that had the almond tree. We would go there to pluck some, sometimes, sit right under the tree to eat to our fill, and then we would head back to the school ready for the next class.
On this day, the closest house to our school where we used to go was locked, and we were good students who would never jump the fence into someone’s compound for any reason. Maybe except the key is lost.
We were so hungry that we had to look for another means to find a meal, so we walked around a bit to check it we would find another house that had sweet almonds like our favourite house, and we eventually found one.
There was a kid who was about our age playing under the tree, and we joined her. It was just me and Gabriel. We joined the little girl playing under the tree and we looked up to see if we could pluck some which we did.
We plucked as many as we could, and when we were done, we wanted to head back to school when the kid we met under the tree let out a scream.
The mother, who wasn’t far from us came running at the scream of her daughter and asked what happened. The girl had lost her #100 naira note that she was meant to buy biscuit with. She let out an even louder scream when the mum came, while she looked at us fiercely as if she was trying to tell her mum that one of us stole the money.
Gabriel and I looked at each other, and back at the woman who had asked us to “surrender” everything we were holding. We only had a nylon full of almond fruits. Nothing more. Oh, and I was supposed to have some cash on me which was supposed to be my transport fare back home at the end of the day, but for God, I didn’t even think of taking it away from my bag.
The mother of the girl searched our fruit nylon, searched my uniform, removed my hijab to see if I wasn’t hiding it under my scarf, ordered me to remove my sandals and socks to be sure that I wasn’t hiding it under my feet.
After the proper search on me and Gabriel and she found nothing, she then said, “we had spent the money”.
It was shocking to hear her say that because the shop where we would’ve spent the money was right beside us, and at least one person would’ve seen us eat or buy something, but none came forward to support her hypothesis, but she held us down anyway.
We stood there, watching and waiting for her judgement when her youngest daughter came running towards her mum with the balance she collected from spending the #100 naira. She had bought sweet and brought the balance to her mum. I knew it was the money she was looking for when she asked her daughter who gave her the money and she responded that “it fell from her sister’s hand, and she took it to buy sweet”.
The woman looked at us without any sign of remorse or even a word of sorry. Rather, she said, “you can go” as if we were some criminals on bail.
Even though I was very young at the time, it was embarrassing to be accused of stealing when I went to pluck fruits because I was hungry. More embarrassing was the fact that some of my schoolmates heard her say that when they went to buy snacks from the shop beside the almond tree.
Eventually, I never went back to that tree or even close to there. I didn’t even go to that shop to buy anything until I graduated. I rather bought everything from home or stay hungry if there was no option.
This is my entry to InLeo prompt for March. You can find the details here
Images are from MetaAI